Friday, March 20, 2015

We smile

We always come home with the idea that we will take vacation home with us. We will cut down on Saturday routines to free up family time. We will cut down on clutter to make our home as wonderful as a hotel, or as clutter free as a condo with an ocean view. We will communicate more, verbally, not through text, and we will be kinder and gentler and share our love more often.

We carry these ideals home and we work very hard not to let daily life wear us down. Inevitably it does. It’s hard to communicate with a husband you see only 2 hours a day. It’s hard to push down the annoyance you feel when the piles of laundry overwhelm you and you have not been home yet a week. Or that you have not had time to do a proper shop at the grocery store so you are digging deep into the freezer and using the minimal creative culinary skills you possess to feed your family a nutritious meal. It’s hard to reconcile the fact that your children who were best of friends on the beach 7 days ago are now bickering all day long.

I get it. Vacation is the ideal way of life. We did not come home to spring. We came home to winter. To dirty snow and muddy ground. To bare trees and gray skies. To cold temperatures and forecasts of snow. That promise we would abandon our winter coats and Uggs? That did not last long when faced with 30 degree temperatures. Our last day in Sanibel was 90 degrees.....sigh.

But we try. Every day we try to live the vacation ideals. We forgive. We clean up. We prioritize. We wait. Soon it will be spring and our window will be open and the breeze will carry the scent of salt from the sound and it will lift our spirits. We will be done with lessons and we will travel some more. We will eat from the garden and absorb natural vitamin D.

But for now, on this snowy Friday, when schools are being dismissed early and our plans for this evening may not happen, we hold on to these memories, these precious moments. And we smile.

It is a mix and match suit! The bikini top she wear under the shirt she got at Target since she knew she will never take off the rash guard shirt. The shirt and shorts were purchased from Lord and Taylor. She loved the colors and the fit of the shirt and we found a pair of swim short that happened to match. Shopping for her is hard because she rejects all the "popular" styles and needs something that is covering because she is so active on the beach. This has been a great choice for her.

I try to put photos in my posts that have not been posted to IG just so there is variety in the blog book. When the girls were babies, I used to watch Dr. Phil and I still remember his advice that what really matters are the beginning and ends of the days.....the stuff in the middle, not so much. If we have a not so great night, my goal is to always go to bed happy.